Just picked up my first Fox Body...finally

[matt5058]

I just finished editing and uploading my video on the lower control arm installation process, which took me the better part of last weekend. My facial expression in the thumbnail photo reflects my naive optimism prior to the installation process.


I've now replaced front lower control arms on my 2014 Mustang, rear LCA relocation brackets on the 2014, rear lower control arms on the Fox, and upper control arms on the Fox. The rear LCAs on the Fox were definitely the worst installation to date. If I ever have to replace the front control arms, I seriously might consider paying someone else to do it, lol.

 

[matt5058]

Picked up a set of cheap wheels for the Fox over the weekend. 16x8 Pony wheels. Not my first choice but I do prefer a factory-ish look and the deal was too good to pass up. $80 for all four wheels. At first I thought they needed a bit more work but upon closer investigation, they are in pretty good shape aside from the center caps. One wheel has a little bit of curb rash but other than that and the caps, they are fine.



The guy I bought them from was pretty cool and also an owner of his first Fox that he had purchased this year. His black 93 (I think) GT was in excellent shape.

We talked for a bit before he had to take off. He told me the Fox was his daily driver and he had even taken it camping recently. As someone who took my own 2014 GT camping recently, I appreciated that Mustang utilization.


I picked up some tape, primer, and paint to see if I can get the center caps sorted. Worst case, I'll just order a new set of caps for all four wheels.

 

[matt5058]

Over the weekend, a buddy of mine came to visit and we replaced the power steering pump on the Fox. Plenty of idiocy ensued during the process but I’m happy to be done with that.

I wish I would have learned about hose removal tools before working on this, lol.


While working on the power steering, we found a small leak on the lower radiator hose. Seems like it might be good to replace a few more of the hoses while I’m at it.

 

[matt5058]

My early Christmas present to myself arrived yesterday. Ordered the SVE short throw shifter. I picked this one over the Steeda because it had better reviews and was slightly cheaper. Plus, I already have the Steeda shifter handle so I figure I can at least try both that one and the handle that came with the SVE, rather than having two Steeda shifter handles. Will probably try to get this installed over the weekend.

Will likely try to do the radiator hoses soon too, since those arrived a couple of days ago:

Uploaded a new video this morning, brainstorming what to do next and in what order, and asking for inputs from the Fox Mustang folks with more experience/expertise than me.

 

[matt5058]

Started working on getting the SVE short throw shifter installed. Naturally I found a way to make the process for removing the center console as time-consuming as possible. Just waiting for the lower shift boot to arrive so I can get this finished up and test out the different shifter handles.

 

[CobraBob]

That SVE shifter looks nice, Matt. Thanks for buying one of my shifter gasket kits. Just curious where you bought it, since it came with our shifter parts for your installation.

Hope the rest of your Fox project goes well for you. Should be nice! Peace out!

 

[matt5058]

That SVE shifter looks nice, Matt. Thanks for buying one of my shifter gasket kits. Just curious where you bought it, since it came with our shifter parts for your installation.

Hope the rest of your Fox project goes well for you. Should be nice! Peace out!

Hey Bob! Thanks for your kind words. I thought the name on the gasket was familiar but I forgot you were on SVTP. I ordered the shifter and gasket separately but they both came from LMR.

 

[matt5058]

I documented this in the latest video, which I'm currently finishing uploading but I did a little comparison with each of my three available shifter handles.

OEM, Steeda Tri-Ax, and SVE


Side by side

 

[matt5058]

I'd love to try a bunch of different shifters out on the Fox one day when I have a bunch of money I don't know what to do with. For now, I'm pretty happy with the SVE, especially for the price.

Newest video is up, with more details on finishing up the install and comparing the shifter handles:

 

[ford fanatic]

Damn dude, a few months ago I had a mint set with almost new tires and I tried forever to get $200 with no bites at all. Ended up letting them go to a buddies son to put on his car for $100. No rash and the center caps were perfect. I would have definitely hooked you up as I’m just up in MD.

 

[matt5058]

Damn dude, a few months ago I had a mint set with almost new tires and I tried forever to get $200 with no bites at all. Ended up letting them go to a buddies son to put on his car for $100. No rash and the center caps were perfect. I would have definitely hooked you up as I’m just up in MD. View attachment 1685913

Aaaahhhhh! Haha all good man. I wasn’t really looking for wheels for a while since I was so focused getting some of the mechanical issues sorted out.

 

[matt5058]

I’ve made zero progress recently...I blame the weather mostly. Snow the last two weekends and freezing temperatures over a couple of weeks before that. I really need to get some type of insulation for my garage. This was last weekend.



My other excuse is that we spent a couple of weeks test driving multiple vehicles before finally buying one early last week. I made a video about it, naturally.

I didn’t put all the details in the video or it would be like three hours long but if anyone is on the tall side and in the market for a crossover, I can offer lots of insight. We tested 11 vehicles before choosing one.

The Fox has lost its garage space for the time being but hopefully once the weather starts cooperating, I can get back to making some progress. Glad I at least got this car cover from the previous owner. This is from yesterday morning. Most of the snow had melted and then it started coming down heavy overnight.

Not sure why this photo is only showing up upside down...

 

[matt5058]

Realized recently that it had been about a year since I picked up the Fox. It’s still cold as balls out so I made a video talking about all the things accomplished on the project to date.

 

[matt5058]

It snowed again this week. I did get time to make a trip to an auto body shop in Fredericksburg to get a quote on replacing and painting the rear bumper cover on the Fox. It's the thing I hate the most on the car visually...so I think I might just do it if we can find the right bumper cover.

I also have some scratches on the 2014 GT's trunk lid that I have been wanting to get fixed for a long time....but I'm also floating the idea of getting into a newer Mustang or something different like a WRX STI or Civic Type R. The amenities of the Forester have me day dreaming of something newer/fancier but still fun and fast. I figure the Fox could still serve its function and fit my RWD V8 needs but I don't know if I'll do it or not. I've had a lot of automotive ADD lately. We'll see.

Anyways, I got bored and made another video.

 

[matt5058]

Nerd alert.....got a new phone case. Not an exact match clearly but I dig it.


So I got a few parts in the mail a week or so ago. I wanted to try and start working on getting the door aligned (I think I mentioned this in my latest video) so I went ahead and ordered the inner door renewal kit. After watching some videos, it seems this won’t be particularly easy but that’s fine.


So naturally I started with what I thought would be the easiest part - the door latch strikers. I had noticed recently the bushings were missing on mine anyways. So I got the new striker installed on the driver side with the spacer and it took a lot of fenagling and adjusting to get it to open and close the way it seems it should (still not completely certain to be honest but it seems to be working).


After closer examination of the center caps that came with my super cheap pony wheels, I decided to just go ahead and order new ones. Now I just need to figure out how soon I'm going to brave the rear main seal/clutch replacements and then have a better idea of what time I'll order some new tires. The center caps arrived over the weekend and seem like a pretty good match, though the wheels need to be cleaned.


I started another separate playlist for when I'm not actually doing work on either of the cars and just rambling. My plan is to try and keep this mostly Mustang related but we'll see how that goes...


I did a little bit of work on straightening out the pinch welds on the Fox on Saturday. I'll have a video up on that soon. Little thing that I had been meaning to do and also procrastinating on doing the cooling system stuff.

 

[matt5058]

Got a new video up today, a review of the SVE jack pads and the pinch weld flange straightening tool. There’s more detail in the video but I’m pretty happy with these SVE jack pads. It would be awesome if they made them in a few different sizes (like maybe slightly bigger to better fit the jack cup like the rubber one pictured below) but these seem like they will work pretty well for the Fox. I haven’t tried them on the 2014 yet.


It’s pretty awesome that they have magnets.

 

[matt5058]

I took advantage of the warm weather to finally get started on the cooling system stuff, which I’ve been procrastinating on. I drained the coolant, removed the hoses, and sprayed some PB blaster on the water pump bolts. Had to do some work on the back deck over the weekend as well so I didn’t get a ton of time on the Fox but I’m glad I finally started that process.

Also found a large drip pan at Auto Zone today. It was $10 so I grabbed it. Figure it’s better than constantly throwing cardboard boxes underneath to catch leaks.


Made a little bit more progress on Sunday - got all the hoses removed, got 4 of the water pump bolts out, and took the coolant overflow tank out. Taking the tank out made me glad I decided to order a new one.


I made a new video, which I uploaded last night. The earlier bits are me failing at something unrelated to the cooling system, rambling, taking a trip to Auto Zone, and then eventually getting around to working on the cooling system bits.

 

[matt5058]

I've been crazy busy with work lately and my wife and I took a couple of weeks to get out of town so I haven't updated my threads much lately. The cooling system stuff (hoses, thermostat housing, & thermostat) took way longer than I expected. Sharing part 2 of that experience here:


Also, in case anyone's card nerdness extends beyond Mustangs, while we were on our road trip, we visited a friend in Louisiana who recently bought a 1996 Mitsubishi Lancer EVO rally car, which I got to drive multiple times in three days. It was pretty awesome, to put it mildly.

 

[matt5058]

Edit - just realized I had posted the first of this in the “what did you do to your fox body today” thread:

Attempted to remove the rear bumper cover...but am currently being held up by the bottom of the three nuts on the passenger side.


Anyone have any suggestions for getting this out? It’s freaking impossible to get even my smallest ratchet down there and with awrench, there’s no space to move.

update - Managed to get it out today after work. My hand is cramped and useless now, lol.

 

[matt5058]

That last post was supposed to be a follow up to this, which I just realized I put in the “what did you do to your fox body today” thread..

Attempted to remove the rear bumper cover...but am currently being held up by the bottom of the three nuts on the passenger side.


Anyone have any suggestions for getting this out? It’s freaking impossible to get even my smallest ratchet down there and with awrench, there’s no space to move.

mods feel free to delete - kept getting errors so I ended up posting the same thing like three times